


Miss Mindfuck

by sarkywoman



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 19:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20533685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: Vanya’s attack had felt like reinforcement of the idea that her Rumour is just plain bad news.For 'Mind Rape' at badthingshappenbingo. 5 times Allison Rumoured someone and one time she didn't.





	Miss Mindfuck

1\. **I heard a Rumour… you think that you’re just ordinary**

It’s dark when her father takes her down the elevator. Allison hasn’t been down here before. Her mom – their newest mom, with the reddest lips and blondest hair – squeezes her hand kindly as they go down the dark hallway. With her and Pogo there too it isn’t so scary. 

They take her to a little room at the end and her father tells them to go inside. Vanya is in there. Allison hasn’t seen her for days. She’s been sick, they said. They had to keep her away so that everyone else didn’t get sick too.

Mom gives her food and medicine, then her father says it’s time.

He gave her instructions before they came down here. Weird instructions for what she needs to say to Vanya, using the power she has to change people’s minds. 

Her sister’s eyes are wide in the dark, waiting to see what they are going to do. Allison has always been told not to use her ability on the other people in the house. This is different and she doesn’t understand why.

“Do it.”

Nobody says no to their father. 

Allison looks her sister in the eye. “I heard a Rumour… you think that you’re just ordinary.”

She sees the words settle, her sister’s eyes growing grey and dim for a moment. Then her gaze clears. 

Pogo looks so sad and Allison doesn’t understand why. Her mother leads her out of the room and back upstairs. 

“Now, you can’t speak about this with anyone,” she says. “It’s best just to forget about the whole thing.”

How can she make her brain forget a thing? The more Allison tries to forget, the more she wonders about it. Why would her dad make her say something like that?

Vanya comes back to them a couple of days later, but since she has been sick she isn’t allowed to train anymore. 

“When will she get better?” Klaus asks.

“Unfortunately her state will not improve. Vanya is ordinary now.”

Of course she is, Allison thinks. She had made it so with a Rumour.

Over time it becomes just the way things are. Her brain doesn’t forget exactly, but it buries the reason down deep under years of their father’s lies and Vanya’s quiet inadequacy. Even when Allison begins to repent for every Rumour, she fails to recall the worst one of all. 

The Rumour that consumes her sister’s life.

2\. **I heard a Rumour… you’re joining our mission today**

Allison doesn’t feel right going to Ben’s room. She rarely goes to anyone’s room anymore except her own or Luther’s. Even in Luther’s she has to sneak there, so that their ‘father’ doesn’t scold them for associating outside of the allocated recreational time. 

But it’s her ‘father’ who insists she goes to see Ben. He wants her to “talk to him. Persuade him to join us today”.

She had asked, “what if he doesn’t want to?” A stupid question, really. She had known the answer even as she said it.

“What he wants is irrelevant. His presence is required.” Then Sir Reginald Hargreeves had peered at her through his monocle. “Unless you are confident in your ability to protect your brothers from so many assailants?”

Not for the first time, Allison gave thought to running away. She’d love to have a real life one day. But she would miss the attention of the news crews and magazines.

Instead she goes to Ben’s room. He tells her he’s scared, that the monster inside grows more difficult to control with every mission. 

She tells him in return that, “I heard a Rumour… you’re joining our mission today.”

When his eyes mist over there is a shudder all through him. She thinks she glimpses the beast, a strange form overlaying her brother’s human body for a moment. Just a moment, then it’s gone. She wonders if her Rumour even works on the thing inside, as Ben gets ready for the mission.

They find out very soon that it doesn’t. When she’s screaming that same day that, “I heard a Rumour you WENT AWAY! I heard a Rumour you DIDN’T HURT HIM! I HEARD A RUMOUR YOU LET BEN LIVE!”

At the funeral Luther grasps her hand in his, both of them staring straight ahead. “You tried your best,” he whispers.

There isn’t a Rumour in the world that can bring Ben back. 

Or make the others forgive her if they knew.

3\. **I heard a Rumour… you want to go to rehab**

“There you are.”

“Allison!” Klaus beams and waves at her with one big sweep of his arm that almost topples him off of the bed.

She doesn’t even like stepping into the room. The beige, stained carpet squishes slightly under her Gucci heels. She’s not happy to leave her car outside the motel and keeps glancing out of the window to make sure nobody has taken it.

There are a few food wrappers on the floor but mostly there are little see-through bags and dirty spoons. Lighters and ‘cigarettes’. It’s taken her two full days to find the right motel after her brother’s suspicious and fleeting visit. 

“I don’t imagine you still have _any_ of the stuff you stole from me?”

Klaus rolls his eyes. “I didn’t steal from you.”

“My jewellery. My clothes. My fucking make-up!”

“_Borrowed_,” Klaus says. “I’d never steal from my beloved sister.” His words are slurred and tumbling haphazardly from his mouth. High as a kite again, unlike when he had shown up at her door, twitchy and fidgeting. She should have known this was coming, but she had hoped. Having not seen any of her family in years now, she had hoped so hard. 

“So where is it?”

Her brother looks around the crappy room then back at her blearily. “Uhh… someone else has… borrowed it from me? It’s like a… not a circle jerk… another thing.”

“Do you understand how fucked up you are? Like seriously. This is not okay.” She stomps nearer to glare down at him. He’s so damn skinny. There are fresh trackmarks down his arm. His eyeliner is smudged to hell like he’s been crying. “_You_ are not okay.”

“Feel fine,” he says with a doped-up smile. 

“Right now you do. But how long will the high last?”

“Forever, if I’m lucky.”

“You’ve never been that. None of us have.”

He laughs, but it’s a bitter sound. “Right. Miss Mindfuck, herself, who talked her way into stardom never got lucky with anything ever.”

That stings. “I earned this.”

It just makes him laugh again. But she did earn this. Perhaps not in the most conventional way, but she had to fight her way out of that house just like everyone else. She could have stayed, could have _made_ it into the life they wanted, but she made the healthy choice. She left. It broke her heart but she survived that and she fought for what she wanted. The complete opposite of Klaus, who can’t lift a finger to help himself.

“I heard a Rumour...”

He groans. “Don’t do that.”

“...that you want to go to rehab.”

His eyes mist over grey, then he shakes his head as if to clear a haze. They don’t remember, her Rumour victims. She suspects it wouldn’t work if they did. She wonders what would happen if she told someone what she had said. Would it break the ‘spell’ when they realised the thoughts were not their own? She had never dared to test it.

“Allison,” Klaus pleads, grabbing for her hands clumsily. “I’m sick. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“We could find an institution,” Allison suggests. “Just temporarily. Somewhere to help you. I’ll even pay, this time.”

To her relief, he nods, the Rumour settling in. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good. I think I want that.”

So she takes him back to her place and they arrange it. They discuss practicalities. He carries on sneaking drugs until she gets him to the door of the clinic, but she figures they’ll deal with that. They’ll help him.

Six months later her brother has overdosed and then gone missing from the hospital. Over the following few years she counts seven visits to rehabilitation centres before she can no longer bear to tune in. Klaus definitely still wants to go to rehab. 

She should have Rumoured him not to want drugs instead.

Except… she’s starting to think perhaps she shouldn’t have Rumoured him at all. Or anyone else, for that matter.

4\. **I heard a Rumour… you don’t have nightmares any more**

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s an easy request.”

The look on Number Five’s face could sour milk. Not that he has any in that coffee. Always caffeinating himself with impunity. Now Allison thinks she knows why.

“I’m sorry,” she says in in response to his glare. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“It’s simple enough,” he snaps. “A yes or no will suffice.”

“I don’t Rumour family.”

“Anymore,” he says. When Allison glares, the imperious little shit smirks at her. “Oh come on. We all know what happened with Vanya. And your daughter. Probably Luther too.”

“No, I didn’t use my Rumour on him.”

“Whatever. Will you help me? Or do you only use it to get what _you_ want?”

“That’s not fair. I’ve _tried_ to use it to help people. It never works right. The words always get twisted up in people’s heads.” She thinks of Klaus, still trying so hard to fight his addictions and compulsions. “My powers aren’t a substitute for therapy. You should consider that.”

Five shakes his head with a little wrinkle of his nose. “No thanks. I don’t care to spend that kind of time on the issue when I have a much quicker resolution stood in front of me.”

“Are we just tools to you?” Allison asks.

“Not all of you,” he says, though his haughty gaze doesn’t reassure her that she is one of the exceptions. He sips his coffee. “Now. You asked me if there was anything you could do and I’ve told you. Will you try it or not?”

Allison takes a deep breath. She hasn’t used her power since before her throat was slashed. She had already been trying to avoid it. Vanya’s attack had felt like reinforcement of the idea that her Rumour is just plain bad news. But behind Five’s acerbic attitude, she can see the desperation. How often does he ask for their help? Only when it’s vital.

“Okay.”

He nods, as if he had expected her agreement all along. “Go ahead then.”

“You’re not going to thank me?”

“I’ll thank you when I know it works.”

“Fine. I heard a Rumour… that you don’t have nightmares anymore.” 

His eyes mist over a moment. Then he blinks and sips his coffee. “What were we talking about?”

“You said you were having nightmares.”

“Oh. Yeah. Doesn’t matter. An apocalypse will do that to you.”

“Tell me if they carry on,” she says.

Five waves a hand at her dismissively. “Yeah, sure.”

She knows better than to try and check in on him in the night. The paranoid little insomniac would think she’s up to no good. So Allison leaves it a week before checking in. “Had anymore nightmares lately?”

The boy frowns at her, as if he can’t figure out why she’s asking. “No. You don’t need to be concerned.”

“Just checking,” she says. 

Of course she’s unlikely to get any thanks with the Rumour bypassing his conscious memory and settling right into the unconscious. That’s okay. Seeing her little brother without the dark circles under his eyes is enough for her.

5\. **I heard a Rumour… you let them go**

“Mother_fuckers_!” 

Diego throws a knife after their assailants. 

Allison hears a scream, but she isn’t looking. Her attention is on Luther and the blood pooling under his head. She doesn’t care that it’s soaking into her trousers as she kneels beside him to try and wake him. All of her focus is on his eyes as she begs him to come to.

“Wake up, Luther. Luther. I heard a Rum--”

“They’re getting away, I’m going after them!”

She looks up to see Diego pulling another knife.

“Are you serious?! Luther needs us!”

“No time, if they’re headed to the Academy we need to warn Klaus, he’s there alone!”

He’s barely taken three steps before Allison, with Luther’s head cradled in her lap, snaps, “I heard a Rumour… you let them go.”

Behind the domino mask Diego’s eyes fog up for a moment. When it clears, he scowls in the direction their attackers went, but he makes no further move to follow. He turns instead, as she’d wanted, to Luther. “We should get him medical attention.”

“Stop a car,” she says. “I’ll do the rest.”

It feels wrong, using a Rumour again to hitch a ride to the hospital, but she has no choice. For all Luther’s brawn, he’s far from invincible. The group that have been attacking them seem to be targetting him particularly. She doesn’t know why, but she does know she’ll be damned if she lets them take him away from her. 

In the hospital, Diego takes a moment to use one of the payphones to call home. The doctors quickly establish Luther’s going to be okay, but Allison doesn’t dare leave his side.

When Diego returns, Luther is sleeping again after a short period of consciousness. In typical Diego fashion he skulks around in the corner of the room for a while before saying anything.

“Those bastards attacked the Academy.”

Allison doesn’t look at him, still watching Luther sleep and holding his hand. Her hands looked so petite against his. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. Luckily Five and Vanya got home early from the show. Otherwise it’d just have been Klaus there.”

“That is lucky.” It would have been her fault. But what else could she have done?

“What I can’t figure out,” Diego says, leaning forward in his chair towards her, “is why I didn’t chase them down.”

“Because Luther was hurt.”

“He’ll be more hurt if we can't catch these bastards. They got away from the others too. Five’s tracking them now.”

“He needs to be careful.” She still can’t meet Diego’s eyes.

“Did you fucking Rumour me?”

She glares at him. “What, because you didn’t run off half-cocked with no back-up after some psychos with weird superpowers while your brother lay bleeding?”

“Yes.” Diego’s gaze is unflinching.

It’s likely he’ll believe her if she says no. If she musters the right amount of indignation.

But that’s a dark road. One she has travelled down too far already. 

“I did.”

His jaw tightens. When he stands it’s a sharp motion, shoving his chair back with the legs of it scraping the floor unpleasantly. 

“You put the rest of our _family_ at risk!”

“Luther was already ‘at risk’!”

Diego waves a dismissive hand. “He’s got a hard head. Doctors say he’ll be fine. You could have grabbed a ride and got him here yourself. My role is to take out the threats, not play nursemaid!”

Luther groans. “Diego.”

“Sssh,” Allison soothes him. She strokes his forehead gently, near where the bandage is. “It’s okay. Just Diego being Diego.”

He smiles weakly at her, then at Diego. “You can go home. Protect the others, if these guys come after them.”

“Naturally. Someone has to.” With a sharp nod, Diego turns on his heel and strides out.

Allison sighs. “Sorry. He’s worse than Klaus sometimes when it comes to dramatics.”

“Did you really use your power on him?” Luther asks. “I thought you’d stopped.”

“I have. Mostly. But this was an emergency.”

“I’ll be fine,” he promises, squeezing her hand. She squeezes back.

She kisses the furrow of his brow, but he’s still frowning when he closes his eyes to rest.

5\. **But I love you **

After Luther’s little trip to the hospital, he seems standoffish. Allison can’t help but wonder if he’s embarrassed that he was so easily dropped by their attackers. She sees him talking more to hypervigilant Diego, who always glares daggers at her when she enters the room mid-conversation. 

He seems to be repairing his relationship with Vanya at least, which is good. What happened before the Orchestra was a product of their dad’s fucked-up parenting, nothing more. They were all trying their best with the limitations their upbringing had given them. 

“Luther was asking a lot about the past,” Vanya says, when Allison asks what they’ve been talking about. “You know, what I remember. The drugs, the… the Rumour.”

“It makes sense,” Allison says. “I mean, he’s not exactly going to turn into Dad when it comes to recording this stuff, but he wants to amass whatever information we have to be safe.”

“Yeah.” Vanya fidgets with the ends of her sleeves. “It was the Rumour he asked most about.”

“Oh.”

Again, it makes sense. God knows she goes through records of Dad’s experiments on Luther. Wanting to know everything, just in case. None of them ever lived in each other’s pockets, even growing up. Vanya had written it best, that they were never really a family. They hadn’t wanted to know each other too much back then. Just knowing their own suffering had been enough, without taking on someone else’s. She often thought of leaving as putting on her own oxygen mask first, meaning to come back for the others but never quite gaining the courage. 

Luther’s research into her power and his questions about her use of it make Allison think deeper about the things she’s done. It’s not a new line of thought though. This time when she looks at how she can be better she thinks of Five and how she has used her power to help him. She thinks of how Diego shook it off and how Vanya remembers, now that she has been told. 

It’s too late for Ben, but Klaus is still struggling with his demons. So she goes to him and tells him the truth. That she Rumoured him to rehab. She watches as he tries to understand what this means and she offers to try harder. To craft a better Rumour that will really help him this time.

Klaus reacts… badly. He starts calling her Miss Mindfuck again and claims she abused his trust which… yes. She can’t argue with that. He flounces away without accepting her help and she next sees him in the courtyard chain-smoking and ranting while Diego listens attentively. 

A couple of hours later Luther finds her in her room. He’s a welcome distraction from her thoughts but he doesn’t return her smile.

“Uh, Klaus says you Rumoured him.”

“Yeah, years ago. I was trying to help. I mean, it got him to rehab.”

“Over and over,” Luther says with a huff that might be related to a laugh, but not identical. “Allison, your power… it doesn’t help people. I’m sorry.”

“Not true,” she says. “Ask Five. Well don’t _ask_ Five, it’ll probably break the Rumour, but I got rid of his nightmares.”

Luther looks aghast. “You Rumoured Five too?”

“He asked me to! Promise! I didn’t want to, but--”

“But you did it anyway.”

“Of course, he’s my brother.” She reaches for his hand and squeezes. “I know it’s not easy, ethically, but--”

“You’ve used your power to get your own way with every person in this house.”

“What? No, I--”

“I’ve read Dad’s journal,” Luther says quietly. “So has Vanya. We know about Ben.”

Allison draws her hand back. “What?”

“We think it would be best that the boys aren’t told,” Luther says, voice still calm and quiet. “Diego’s on edge lately. Well, he’s always on edge, but it’s more directed your way than usual. Klaus is pretty upset. I don’t know which way Five would fall on the issue.”

He’s talking to her so coldly. Allison grabs his chin and tilts his face towards hers so he has to at least _look_ at her. “You know my intentions are good. That I’m trying to be better.”

“I thought I did but...” Luther shakes his head.

“But what?!”

With a sigh he replies, “it could just be the Rumour, couldn’t it?”

“Rumour, what Rumour?”

“The one you used on me. To make me love you.” He pulls away from her and heads to the door.

For a second she can’t breathe. The enormity of what he’s said has crushed her chest. “I never. Luther, I’ve never used my power on you!”

He looks back at her over his shoulder. His eyes are so sad that for a moment she thinks of when he had locked Vanya away. When he thought of their sister as a lost cause. “I wish I could believe you.”

When she parts her lips to speak again he holds up a hand. “Please don’t Rumour me to.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to do,” she says, her tight throat making the words croaky. She feels a tear slip cool down her cheek. 

“It’s weird,” Luther says. “The realisation of the Rumour is supposed to make it lose its hold. But I see you crying and it breaks my heart.”

“Because I didn’t Rumour you,” Allison sobs. “I love you.”

“Would you at least tell me when you did it?” Luther asks. “At the very least.”

“I didn’t Rumour you!” 

Luther sighs. “I think it’ll take the truth for the Rumour to lose its hold. When you’re ready to talk about it, you know where to find me.”

He leaves her weeping. 

And wondering, when she lies awake that night, how to best word a Rumour to make them all forget.


End file.
